sex and politics

This is Ashlee Jae… I must admit that I had a tough time choosing from the multitude of her pictures… Ah, the troubles I go through to get you guys (and gals) prime foxy material.

I know, I know… It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it….

So, apparently we’ll know for a fact today who will win the bid to build the footbal stadium in Ljubljana. A story which began in late 1999 when then-mayor Vika Potočnik blurted out the promise to build a new stadium in light of successes of Slovene footbal team (which had then just qualified for Euro 2000, against all odds), might at last get a move on.

The proposed look of the new stadium

But truth be told, I’m not really holding my breath. Yes, we’re marginally closer to getting a stadium than we were a year (or ten years ago) and yes, Mayor Janković did a lot to breath life into the project (it is afterall central to his political platform) and the project he proposes seems to be sound: The municipality will sell the land to whoever bids the highest and this investor will then build a shopping mall for himself and a stadium and a sports hall for the city (we’re still waiting for the details, though), but as long as I’m not seeing the mayor kicking off the game (as he promised he would do), I’m not buying the tickets.

BTW: there are seven bidders for the stadium. Any bets as to who will get the contract?

EDIT: In the end the job went to a consortium of Gradis construction company and retail company Merkur for a total sum of € 81 million. SCT bailed out just before the deadline, as did four other potential ivestors. The only other bidder was Red d.o.o., a consortium of the infamous Jurij Schollmayer and a group of Dutch investors. Schollmayer and Merkur crossed paths some years ago when former sold his limping Big Bang stores to the latter, which turned out to be one of the worst deals Merkur ever made, spending a lot of money to get Big Band out of the red and pay outstanding debts.

One person was detained yesterday in Maribor by the criminal police on charges of tax evasion. According to reports by Finance business daily the person in question is Rado Snežič (edit: According to today’s Dnevnik, Rado Snežič is abroad and the person detained is his second-in-command), owner and CEO of Meltal, a company dealing in scrap non-ferrous metal. This may or may not be connected to Operation Clean Shovel, but the proximity of two events suggests at least a moderately strong link.

Kolonel post-box (source) and Rado Snežič w/wife (source).

Now, Rado Snežič could just be a wrong man and a wrong place at the wrong time, but as he apparently holds more than just tangential connection to Laško Brewery, the whole “war on tycoons” declared by PM Janez Janša during the vote of no confidence is begining to take on shape and form. And the main target right now seems to be Laško’s Boško Šrot, who broke Janša’s influence on Delo daily and got hold of Mercator retail chain in the process, swindling Janša big time in the process.

But is this really a war against tycoons or is the prime minister simply holding a grudge and looking to score some cheap political points?